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Friday, May 27, 2016

Separation anxiety in dogs

Sadie the doodle demonstrates a dog mounted camera.

The AVA Annual Conference is
in full swing, and keynote speaker in the behaviour stream, Professor Xavier Manteca has
been sharing his knowledge about the behaviour of small and large animals. He
provided an interesting update on separation anxiety in dogs. Given this is a
massive welfare issue, affecting a huge number of dogs, I thought I’d share
some key points I’d learned.

First some background – the
figures vary between studies, but separation anxiety and related behaviours may
account for 15 per cent of behaviour cases seen in general practice, and 40 per
cent of cases seen by behaviour specialists. In a UK study, only 13 per cent of
owners of affected dogs sought veterinary advice. Male dogs are more commonly
affected, as are some breeds (e.g. cocker spaniels). Separation anxiety can
lead to dog to be surrendered or euthanased. Furthermore, unmanaged separation
anxiety can cause severe, prolonged distress.

The most common signs are

Vocalisations (in one study,
over 80 per cent of dogs with separation anxiety vocalise, which can be a
nightmare not just for dogs and owners but also neighbours)

Inappropriate toileting

Increased
activity/movement/restlessness

Anorexia

Excessive salivation

In addition there are other
disease associations, e.g. dogs with separation anxiety have increased skin
conditions.

As technology becomes less
expensive and more user friendly, I find a lot of clients who have concerns
about their dog’s behaviour are hooking up webcams and streaming footage to
their phone. This is actually VERY helpful, as most dogs are unlikely to
exhibit signs of separation anxiety when their owner is present with them in a
consult room. And being anxious when left at the vet isn’t diagnostic, because
it’s quite common. So that cover home footage is very useful.

So what did I learn?

Not all dogs show signs. In
some dogs, anxiety may trigger behavioural inhibition – i.e. they become much less active. These dogs may be just as anxious
but they’re unlikely to be presented to a vet. They may suffer more than the
dog’s whose suffering is more obvious to us.

Dogs with separation anxiety
have a negative cognitive bias. Cognitive bias refers to a change in thinking
due to our emotional state. So dogs with a negative cognitive bias are more
likely to interpret a neutral cue as negative, whereas those with a positive
cognitive bias are more likely to interpret a neutral cue as positive (the
glass-half-empty and glass-half-full approaches to life, respectively).
Separation anxiety, according to current evidence, is associated with a
long-lasting, negative affective or emotional state in affected dogs. This is
an issue because we tend to think dogs with separation anxiety are totally fine
when their owners are present. But recent studies suggest that their background
emotional state may be negative.

Separation anxiety is not just
about hyperattachment to the owner or owners. Typically we think the dog with
separation anxiety simply cannot bear to be parted from a particular owner. But
not all dogs with separation anxiety have hyperattachment, and not all
hyperattached dogs develop separation anxiety. Other possible causes include
contextual fear (something scary happens to the dog when alone, resulting in a
fear of being left alone) or inappropriate attachment (dogs are insecure
because the owners tend to avoid them or be ambivalent about them).The latter
is likely to occur when owners are not consistent or predictable.

The mainstays of treatment are
the same – medication (anxiolytics), environmental enrichment, and behavioural
modification. Environmental enrichment is supposed to work by increasing
serotonin and endorphin levels, but at the level of behaviour it gives dogs
something to spend their time budget on other than being anxious.
Interestingly, Dr Manteca does not recommend the usual strategy of owners
avoiding giving cues they are about to leave. He suggested the opposite:
increasing predictability of the owner’s departure by making it clear the owner
will leave. According to Dr Manteca, “Unlike the standard treatment recommended
so far by most authors, we recommend increasing the predictability of the
owner’s departure. This is because the perception of predictability is one of the
main psychological modulators of the stress response: predictable aversive
events are less stressful than non-predictable ones, as animals will be able to
identify safe periods during which the event will not occur. In contrast, unpredictable
aversive events, when animals are unable to identify safe periods, are more
likely to elicit a state of chronic anxiety.” If you know something bad is
going to happen, but don’t know when, it’s more stressful than knowing when.

He
recommends maintaining the cues that signal departure (hanging an umbrella on
the back of the door, for example), and adding an additional cue that can be placed
by the exit just prior to departure. This can be removed on return. Dogs can
first be habituated to separation by “fake” departures, using a different cue
(such as taping a white piece of paper to the back of the door) than you will
eventually use for the real departures.
Dogs can be left for short periods of increasing length to help
desensitise them, over a period of around 6-7 weeks.

Ultimately,
consistency in our interactions with dogs is key.

Again as a
companion animal vet it makes me very happy to learn about increased research
into the mental health of animals.

Veterinary Ethics: Navigating Tough Cases

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